AIRPORTMAN
I have to put in a word for Charles de Gaulle. I think it's the most architecturally spectacular airport I've ever been in. The experience of moving through it is like when I was a kid, reading comic books. Charles de Gaulle looks and feels like my idea of the future when I was young. It's a really fun, beautiful airport.

I DON'T SLEEP, I DREAM
Hôtel Costes is this strange, really unique hotel. I'll go there, check in, pull down my e-mail, and if I have time, sit for an hour and people-watch, because you'll always see someone you recognize from television or a magazine or the stage there. The staff is incredibly friendly. They serve food late, too, and have the best sole I've ever had. And they have an awesome bar with great music. In fact, you can buy their CDs there. Hôtel Costes was one of the first hotels to have a deejay [Stephane Pompougnac] who created a soundtrack specific to the hotel. It kicked off this worldwide trend of places putting out CD compilations of music that they enjoy. You can buy Stephane Pompougnac's first LP [at the hotel]. He's a deejay, but he's also a songwriter, and I'm on it. I sing a song called "Clumsy."

The Montalembert is another really awesome hotel. It looks like an old building, and the ceilings are slanted and the windows open out onto Paris. I'd recommend the rooms on the top floor. One of the extraordinary things about Paris is finding yourself at the top of a building and looking across at the landscape of the roofs of the city. It's so spectacular, unlike any other city I've been in. By comparison, I'm thinking of Marrakesh and New York. You're looking out and admiring the way the old buildings are integrated into newer buildings. Adapt and reuse is a huge thing in Paris. If a building exists, rather than tear it down, they'd sooner fix it up and accommodate it for the 21st century. So what you get are these really ancient buildings that are almost like LEGOs, put together in this really crazy fashion, and you look out across the roofs and it's this beautiful forest of television wires and water towers.

FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION
I would highly recommend the Palais de Tokyo. What it is is a kind of destroyed building that's superdeconstructed. You just kind of wander around in what appears to be a construction site. The shows the museum has are really extraordinary. There's a fantastic cafe, too, and an outdoor area where people go to read the newspaper, and you can get drinks there. When I was there last, the floor of the cafe had been painted by this artist, so people were walking around on a piece of art. The gift shop at Palais de Tokyo is unlike any museum gift shop you've ever been in. They have little handmade sock puppets, made by a particular artist, that you can only find there. There's also a really incredible bookstore. It's a huge building, so it's a great way to get exercise. And you know, half the time the walls are maybe raw concrete or kind of decrepit-looking paint, half falling off. And you're looking at it and wondering if this is part of the exhibit or if this just happens to be the wall.

WANDERLUST
In a way, Paris is the New York of France. People are brusque and moving pretty quickly through their day. And if you're in the way, you're in the way. I'd say it's become much friendlier to non-French-speaking people in the past six years, though. But it's still a big city. And it's everything you'd imagine it was if you'd never been … to the 10th power. It is that romantic. It is that civilized. The parks are that unbelievably lovely. And the way the city has melded its history with the 21st century and more modern ideas is really, I think, to be applauded.

I'LL TAKE THE RAIN
Just walking through the Louvre and the garden is really extraordinary. They'll have a little carnival set up near the Place de la Concorde. People sit around the fountains, and there are these beautiful metal chairs you can sit in and read the newspaper, eat a baguette, or, you know, feel Parisian for a moment. It's really awesome, even when it rains or the weather is inclement, which is common in Paris. It might be overcast and there are beautiful rolling clouds that just come for days and days or weeks and weeks. Even when it's raining, to walk the gardens of the Louvre is nice, because the air is really clean and it just feels so distinctly French, you can't possibly imagine being anywhere else.